Dagor Dagorath
by JediArya
Summary: After Melkor escapes the Void, the Valar have been seemingly destroyed. After centuries of their exile, they return as humans with no knowledge of their previous existence. Will they learn who they are in time to stop the world from destroying itself?
1. Prolouge

Fire and poison raining down on them, a bizarre assortment of people raced towards an ocean that seemed impossibly huge. Luck had been with them so far, and none of their number had been injured, but just as they reached the water's edge, an enormous glob of foul red slime landed on a tall, fair-haired man. With a long, drawn out scream that terrified his companions, he slowly dissolved into nothingness.

The brief pause the runners allocated to watch the suffering and disappearance of their friend was enough for four more of the remaining thirteen to be struck by the falling toxin. The ones left unscathed dived into the ocean, but even there, safety could not be found. The poison penetrated the salty water, and five more of the sad group met their sorry fate.

Seeing the lack of protection the waters provided, the four companions left climbed back onto the shore to meet their doom in a more dignified manner. While climbing to dry land, a small drop hit one of them precisely between the eyes, and with a bloodcurdling shriek, he joined the rest of his fallen friends.

The only runners left were a powerfully built man with a thick golden beard, a small woman who had been the swiftest of the runners, and a tall woman with flowing hair like a blanket made of the spaces between stars. They dashed for the cover of a nearby cliff, hoping the overhang would provide some measure of protection against the mysterious falling poison. However, their hopes were futile. Enough wind blew to push little drops of the substance into their useless haven. In no time at all, the swift woman was struck and disappeared like the others.

"No!" a single word escaped the man's lips and he looked with desperate longing at the place where the woman vanished.

The other woman turned to him and started speaking very quickly, "When we return to this world, you will find all those who we lost today. You will reunite us, and we will reclaim what is ours."

The man opened his mouth in a questioning manner, but the woman cut him off by placing her hand over his heart and sending a small stream of light into his body. "That should keep you safe." she said.

This time, the man managed to ask his question, "Why?"

"I only had enough for one," the woman sadly replied, "and I knew you would be able to do the seemingly impossible task."

"Why not yourself? You could do the task you set out for me just as well, or perhaps better, than I could."

"Nobody would ever suspect me of leaving such vital job to one not even counted among our most powerful members. They would think I would save myself and undertake the task. You give us a secret advantage."

Just as she finished speaking these words of instruction, Varda Elbereth was hit, leaving Tulkas Astaldo the last of the Valar. He looked to the sky, expecting his doom to fall, but when the drop hit him, instead of feeling the terrible pain the others felt, he was merely enveloped by warm, tingling sensation. He felt the form he had lived in for so long dissolve away, and he knew that the light in him was the light of Iluvatar. Varda had given him her last defense to protect all of them. This gift could not be squandered. Tulkas moved in the way that only beings free of bodies can move. He would live with the children of Iluvatar until the Valar came back. He would wait as long as it took to get revenge on whoever had taken his family and home away.

Perched on top of an impossibly high mountain, Melkor laughed as his creation destroyed the Valar, his erstwhile enemies. Their arrogance had allowed him to escape from the Void and to use his new creation to bring their end. He laughed until he felt his sides would split. When he felt he could laugh no more, he noticed something. The wind, despite having lost its master, was blowing his own poison back at him. Melkor giggled one last time as the irony of the situation dawned on him, and he too dissolved into the nothingness that had claimed the Valar.

**Author's Note: This is definitely a hugely ambitious story to be writing for a first sumission to the website. Constructive criticism welcome. Don't expect updates more than once a week.**


	2. Ilene

It was always the same dream, and Ilene could never remember what happened in it. The most she could figure out about the dream was that she always woke up at the exact same time. She looked over to her clock; two minutes until the alarm went off, as always.

Ilene had devoted as many minutes as she possibly could to divining what happened in her dream. Even before she knew how to read, she would ask adults about the strange disappearing vision in her head. About five years prior to this particular incidence of the reoccurrence, Ilene had been struck by brilliance and decided to write down every minute scrap of detail she retained about the dream. The only details she had been able to write down for the first four years were that she woke at the same time and had the same dream every night without fail. A year ago, real details started to worm their way onto the page. Ilene wrote down a fresh detail from this night and reviewed previous details.

The first one described the location, "_A beach next to impossibly high mountains covered with trees larger and more diverse than found on any one specific location. The water was clear, and it was possible to see for miles into it. There was a cliff with a bit of an overhang next to the shore."_

The second entry was about companions, _"Me and thirteen others, but I can't figure out what sort of relationship we have to each other, and I couldn't say what the others looked like."_

The third entry was written hastily and barely legible, but it was still there, _"We were all running for our lives, but from, or to, what?"_

The fourth entry seemed a bit dramatic to Ilene, but it was a dream, _"Fire and death raining from the sky."_

This last entry seemed the strangest of all, _"There was a tall, well-muscled, blonde man with a beard and he was very sad. I was talking to him."_ Ilene had seen that man before. Sometimes he had his beard, and other times he didn't, but other than that, he always looked the same. When she was a little girl, Ilene thought that he was her guardian angel, but her family never seemed to notice him. He was always just around the corner in public places.

Ilene scratched her chin for a minute, pondering this latest development, and then she jumped up and went to go start the coffee. As curious as she was about her mysterious late night adventure, she was in college and had other things to deal with.

She got dressed and checked the time. It was one in the morning on Thursday; time for astronomy class. Leaving the building, Ilene thought she saw the large man again, but decided it must have just been some trick of the light. Her childhood phantoms couldn't stalk her here.

**Author's Note: Very short chapters so far, aren't they? They're going to get longer. This chapter is hugely overdue, its incredibly short (read "just a filler"). Moreover, it's bizarre. Don't jump ship and leave this story just because of Ilene. It will get more Tolkein-y later, after intoductions to characters and such. Basicly, don't quit reading.**

**I'll try to be a bit faster on my next update.**

**Can't believe I forgot this in the last chapter! Disclaimer: All belongs to Tolkein. Yes, including Ilene; she is derivied from one of his own (cough*hint*cough)**


	3. The Note

Ilene arrived at the astronomy building and set her bag down. She loved astronomy class; for some reason, she connected with stars better than with people.

Her self-assigned assignment was to monitor changes and movements in the stars. She had been trying to do it since her parents first bought her a children's telescope when she was very small. She enjoyed working on it at the college; they had much nicer telescopes and equipment.

Her teacher looked up from his desk, "Ilene, why do you come so late at night? You can watch recordings later in the day like the other students."

Ilene smiled inwardly. Professor Cleary asked this question frequently; they both already knew her answer. "I prefer to see the stars with my own eyes, not some dead recording. Why do you stay here so late?" This game they played had its own little script; neither could deviate from it.

"Somebody has to watch you to make sure you don't go about destroying the equipment," This line was particularly well rehearsed, "and besides, what kind of astronomy teacher would I be if I didn't stay up into ungodly hours to look at pretty lights in the sky?"

"A well-rested one, sir," she replied and went to her usual telescope. Ilene took out her laptop and opened the documents she had been keeping for years now.

Her teacher looker up from his notes again, "I'm expecting your end of year paper to be ten pages longer than those of the other students, okay Ilene?"

Ilene smiled again. She had already started working on her end of year paper, and it was already eleven pages longer than required. Professor Cleary would certainly enjoy reading it. She knew she was enjoying writing it.

Professor Cleary smiled as well. All his life he had strived to make people happy, but he had never seen anyone as happy as Ilene could be when surrounded by her charts and data and looking at the stars. He didn't expect to hear another word from his prodigy for another hour and half after she looked through her telescope, so he was very surprised when he heard her walk over to his desk. He looked up and saw her standing in front of him, holding a piece of folded paper and looking very confused.

"Yes, Ilene?"

"Sir, I found this on my telescope." Ilene handed him the piece of paper.

Professor Cleary looked at the paper, "Seeing as it has your name on it, it must be yours." He said kindly, holding out his arm to offer Ilene the paper.

She just stared at him. "But I didn't put it there."

"It seems you have a secret admirer who knows which telescope you usually use. Take the note and read it."

This time Ilene took the note back and stared at him some more. Eventually she left to go back to her telescope.

Professor Cleary sighed, "_Young love,"_ he thought, "_I remember when I was her age, I sent out a love letter once a week."_ He smiled and went back to work, not knowing that the letter was from no secret admirer.

Ilene went back to her station. Frowning, she opened the letter. She couldn't possibly imagine who would be leaving letters on her telescope. If her roommates had something important to tell her, they would just barge in; the astronomy room was hardly a private classroom. Her classmates would just catch her at mealtimes, and if anybody else wanted to speak with her, they would just talk whenever they saw her next. She held the note up to the light and began to read.

_Dear Ilene,_

_I know this note seems unexpected to you, but you're going to have to trust me for now. I need you to meet under the stairs leading to the drama department at seven o'clock sharp this morning. I promise you this is nothing you need be scared about._

_-T._

_PS- Come alone._

Ilene frowned again; this note had only served to make things more confusing. The underside of the stairs leading to the drama department was famous amongst the students as an occasional drug dealing location. If somebody was planning anything bad or illegal, this is where they would meet. When pilots from the nearby flight school came over, they would hang around these stairs to meet friends or harass the student population. Ilene had never had cause to meet anybody there, and when she first started taking classes, she made a goal to never have to be there.

However, her curiosity was going to get the better of her. She knew this had to be a bad idea, but that made the prospect of going all the more exciting. Seven in the morning happened to be the time she left the dorm after break to go breakfast. She could just swing by the stairs and meet this "T" and then just go about her usual day.

Now that she planned to go to what could very well be a disastrous trap, Ilene could feel excitement buzzing through her body. She had been a bit of a thrill seeker for most of her life, leaning over balconies, diving deeper than she should on beach trips, climbing far higher on trees than was safe, but this had to be the most dangerous of all. She went about work humming slightly, almost looking forward to this meeting later in the day.

There was no way she could pass this up. Ilene loved danger.

**Author's Note: Wow, a fast update! Somebody must have abducted the girl who wrote the previous two chapters. I bet you just can't wait for the next chapter. Plot happens. Well guess what. You're probably going to be waiting for a while. I'm about to go on vacation, and then I'll have to go to my awesome (sadly dead) grandmother's memorial. So long wait for next chapter.**

**Ilene's college is completely fictional, in case you wanted to know. It's a plot device.**

**Professor Cleary is random professor dude (no connection to Tolkein) because I needed Ilene to have a conversation with a professor. I don't think he'll show up again.**

**Disclaimer: All belongs to Tolkein (except random college and Prof. Cleary)**


	4. New Friends

Ilene's timer buzzed and she put her pen down. That timer could only mean one thing: breakfast. It couldn't have come at better time; the coffee and trail mix she had eaten before heading off to astronomy class had long since worn off.

Today, she had been especially eager for the buzz because of the mysterious letter she found earlier. She had even caught herself checking the clock as she worked to see when she could leave the dorm. As she checked the clock again, she noticed that there were only minutes before she needed to be under the drama department's stairs. Throwing her pens and papers into a bag, she dashed out the door at breakneck speed as her dorm mates were still debating what color underpants to wear today.

Running across campus, she mentally berated herself, "_Stupid. Need to be somewhere at seven promptly, and you go about setting the alarm at the same time you'd set it at for leisurely strolling someplace at 7:15. You are an idiot."_

When she came to the staircase, out of breath and wheezing slightly, eleven other people had already gathered there and were standing awkwardly, not talking to each other. They earned odd looks from passerby, no doubt remarking on this group's vast difference to the crowd who normally hung around here: the shady ones with heads gathered together for hushed conversation or loudly jeering at bystanders.

_"Great," _Ilene thought miserably, _"now I have people to witness my failure at keeping track of time."_

Out loud, she said, "Are any of you 'T'?"

A tall, athletic man probably only a year older than Ilene herself who wore a shirt that said "_Swim little swim team fish, swim!"_, most likely a gift hand drawn by a younger sibling, answered her. "No. We were all told to meet them here, same as you." He sounded irritated, as if he'd had to explain this several times before.

Just after this terse exchange, a short girl with proportionally long legs sprinted up to them, laughing. "I knew I could make it here in less than two minutes!" she said. Ilene happened to know this girl was a freshman who had come to this college on a full track and field scholarship. The girl opened her mouth to ask a question, and Ilene could guess what the question would be.

The swimmer man interrupted her before she could even ask, "No, nobody here is 'T'. We don't know who or where they are, and we don't know why we're here."

"Gosh, not very friendly, are we? I just wanted to ask a question." The sprinter replied. Her dazzling smile slipped just slightly down her face.

"And I'm going to answer it." A blond man with a beard stepped under the staircase. A tremor of recognition crossed the faces of all thirteen college students already under the stairs; an outsider would have thought that the thirteen complete strangers had all come a across the bearded man at a party once. "Sorry I wasn't here sooner. Much like yourselves, I don't like repeating myself."

A man with just a stubble of hair covering his head opened his mouth to speak, but the bearded man cut him off, "No interruptions. I'm going to tell you something crucially important, and I understand that all of you are on a very tight schedule." He looked at Ilene as though reprimanding her for not paying attention to the time and almost being late. Ilene felt her cheeks redden.

He continued, "At this point, introductions should be made, seeing as none of you could muster the civility to talk to one another while waiting for me." The swimmer's cheeks reddened, and the mystery man kept talking, "I will not tell you my real name yet, but for now, call me T. As for the rest of getting to know each other, do it on your own time; I need to leave soon."

A tall woman with a long brown ponytail interrupted him, "Why have you gathered us, of all people, together? As far as I can tell, nobody here has anything in common. What could possibly be so far reaching as to apply to us all?"

He smiled, "You'll figure it out on your own time." His face became serious again. "I need all of you to meet me here at the same next week with your answers. Don't forget and don't be late." He gave Ilene one more look and walked away. The young adults simply stared at him with identical expressions of confusion of their faces.

The first to break out of the expression of stupor was a boy with mousy brown hair and thick glasses. "That was extremely unhelpful."

"You just made the understatement of the century," a girl with strawberry blonde hair responded.

The sprinter girl responded, "Who cares? Let's go eat breakfast, if that's where you're off to."

"The first good idea I've heard all day," said a man with long red hair and the most calloused hands Ilene had seen in her life. There were assorted mumbles of agreements all around, and the thirteen of them headed off to the cafeteria.

It was possibly the most bizarre party ever to walk through the campus as a group. Upon reaching the cafeteria, Ilene, who walked towards the rear of the group out of habit, and ten others pulled out student cards and wrinkled handfuls of cash that looked to have gone through the wash one time too many. A gangly man with a blonde ponytail and the man with the buzz cut pulled out money that looked even more bedraggled and identity cards that marked them as being from the flight academy and the military school near campus, respectively. They payed for food and went to sit down at the last remaining large table.

They ate in awkward silence until the girl with strawberry blonde hair said, "So how about those names, huh?"

A curvy woman with thick blonde hair responded, "Excellent. And while we're at it, we should tell a little about ourselves. It would help us to figure out why we of all people were gathered together to answer a question. And you know, we still don't even know what the question is. I think maybe we'll have to figure it out for ourselves, and-"

The swimmer cut her off. "Let's get to then. I'm Ryan, and-"

"If we were a therapy group, this would be the point at which we'd all say 'Hi, Ryan'," a girl with rainbow stripes through her hair examining the knife next to her half-eaten bagel interrupted him. Ryan glared at her, and she levelly met his gaze. "What? It's true."

He continued, "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I'm majoring in marine biology, am currently a junior, and am on the swim team. I do a bit of sailing, as well."

The incessantly happy runner girl spoke, "Okay, cool. My turn now. My name is Vanessa, and I'm a freshman. I run everywhere. I'm on track team." She gave a huge smile a received a half-hearted one from the mousy-haired boy with glasses.

A girl who had been twitching as though she thought Vanessa would talk until they were all dust said, "I'm Penelope, but that's dreadful. Call me 'Penny' instead. I'm an expert in dead languages and histories mostly forgotten; I'll be an archeologist. I'm a senior this year."

The girl with rainbow hair muttered, "This is just like a therapy group."

Ryan glared at her and said, "Why don't you introduce yourself instead of griping about how you think we're a therapy group."

"I'm called Trista, which is short for Trista," she said, smiling in a way that reminded Ilene of a cat her neighbor once owned, "and I actually am in training to be a therapist. Yes, the irony is amusing. Sophomore."

"Well, Trista, short for Trista, maybe next time you can help get into the swing of therapy things," said a man with bright red hair longer than the hair of any of the girls at the table. He smiled a bit at his joke and continued, "I'm a junior, named Arthur, and a sculptor."

Trista looked like she was about to say something to make Arthur regret his joke when the strawberry blonde girl interrupted with a look on her face like she just saved his life. "My name is Jennifer, but Jenny works for me. I'm a freshman, and I just started pre-med."

The boy with mousy hair and huge glasses whistled, "We've got a smart one over here." Jennifer blushed and smiled at the table. He took his turn with a very pleased look on his face. "I'm Corey, a junior. A psychologist. I find human behavior simply fascinating, so don't be alarmed if I start taking notes in the middle of a conversation." He smiled; Ilene wouldn't have been surprised if he had been mentally taking notes of their reactions to each other.

They stared silently at each other for a moment. The man with the buzz cut quietly said, "Name is Dustin. Twenty three years old. At the marine academy." He spoke so softly Ilene could barely hear his words.

Down the table, a tall woman with a brown ponytail snorted. With more contempt than Ilene thought possible to put into words, she said, "Warfare. Tuh."

"Do you have a problem with that?" Dustin responded, equally quiet as before.

"I dislike the thought of wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars on machines and men of destruction to fight a war avenging the death of few compared to the many who die every year because of disease," she snarled.

Trista and the curvy girl spoke at the same time.

"Don't be rude."

"And what's your name?"

While the curvy girl glared at her, she said, "My name is Terra. I'm a junior and an ecologist."

The curvy girl spoke again, "I don't like your attitude, Terra. You have no reason to be mean to Dustin. You don't know why he joined the marines. He could have done it because he didn't have the money to go to school. If you hate the marines so much, you shouldn't have gone to a college right next to a marine academy. In fact, if it bothers you that much, you should just-"

It was Dustin who interrupted her, and during her speech, his ears had turned the color of a radish. "How about your name, pretty?"

She blushed. "My name is Helen, like Helen of Troy. I'm a freshman, eighteen years old. I'm in training to be a teacher. I just love little children. They're just so-"

Ryan interrupted her, "So who's next?"

"My name is Joshua Jackson, the third. I prefer to be referred to as Jojo. I am a senior. I am a geographer," a man with high cheekbones and dark eyes said slowly as if he had to measure each word.

Vanessa looked at Ilene and the ponytailed blonde man sitting next to her. "That just leaves you two, then."

Ilene pushed a strand of black hair out her eyes and introduced herself, "I am Ilene. I chose to follow of path in astrophysics and am a sophomore. Who are you?" she said, looking at the man next to her.

"Well, Astro-geek," he said, smiling in a manner that was all too fond for someone he had just met, "I am Zephyr," he blushed as though expecting someone to laugh at his unusual name, "the pilot. I recently turned twenty."

"And I am running out of time," said Arthur, looking at a watch with a duct tape band, "I think we should all meet later and discuss mysterious T and his unasked question, but I really have to go."

"What's the time?" Terra asked him.

"I'd say 'Time for you to get a watch'," he smiled slightly, "but you don't look like that sort of girl. It's 7:23."

"I need to leave as well," she said, standing up.

"I'll walk with you." Arthur offered Terra his hand.

She ignored it but said, "All right. We can get to know each other on the way." They left, Terra still idly eating a banana.

Trista looked up from her bagel. "That's probably a good idea."

"What is?" Jojo asked.

"Small groups. Probably two people in each one. Cause less schedule issues. They'd get to know each other and we take turns sharing what we've learned next time we can all gather up."

"I'm game. Who's my partner?" Corey smiled at everybody.

Jennifer claimed him, saying, "I'll get to know you, Corey." She looked immeasurably pleased to be spending more time with the one who called her smart.

"Cool. Let's leave the cafeteria before we get accused of loitering," he responded.

"Okay."

Penny asked, "Anybody have a free period at nine?"

"No, but I'm sure we'll find other free time in common," Jojo enunciated, "I'll work with you. Geography and archeology are very similar fields; I'm sure we'll find plenty to talk about." They left, comparing schedules to see when they could get together.

"I'll work with Dustin," Helen beamed.

"And what if," Dustin asked her, "I don't want to work with you? Hypothetically speaking."

"Who do you want to work with?" Helen said, perplexed.

"Point taken. We'll talk more outside."

"That sounds excellent," Helen nodded, "Fresh air is good for so many things. Also, the weather this time of year is-" As they walked out of earshot, Helen talked on and on, and, oddly enough, Dustin seemed to be listening to every word she said.

"I claim Ilene." Zephyr proclaimed with a look that said he wouldn't take no for an answer.

"But I-" Ilene started.

"I have a private pilot license, Astro-geek. I can take somebody closer to the stars. I have a four passenger plane all to myself."

Ilene fell silent; he knew exactly what to offer her.

"Group of three then!" Vanessa exclaimed, jumping up. Ryan and Trista had identical expressions of _Save Me_ on their faces. "Come on, lady and gent, let's go someplace that doesn't reek of grease." She dragged her two companions off.

Ilene checked her watch; there was plenty of time. She dumped all the loose papers that had been unceremoniously shoved into her bag onto the table. Zephyr stared in open mouthed astonishment.

"All that fits in there?" he said, pointing.

Ilene paper clipped two different essays into the right order and replaced them. "No." was her very honest answer.

"Going anywhere soon?"

"No, I have an hour before my next class."

"And I've an hour and half before mine. Come on, Astro-geek. Let's go get to know each other someplace where I can see the sky."

"The sky sounds great." Ilene neatly put her laptop and the rest of the papers in her bag and left the cafeteria with Zephyr. A confused cafeteria worker went to their table, wondering why eleven of what she had noticed to be the most socially challenged kids at the school as well as a pilot and a marine she had never seen before were all having conversation with each other.

**Author's Note: This chapter was a pain to write. I kept forgetting who was who and such; towards the beginning of writing it, I got frustrated and made a chart. If you can't remember names (which I totally understand; twelve new characters in one chapter, what?), I recommend a you make yourself a chart, too. If you have a question about the names, feel free to ask.**

**Speaking of characters, I just introduced almost all of them. Yay!**

**On another note, a long chapter! Here it is. I said there'd be one. Happy birthday. Incidently, this about as long as all the others combined.**

**Disclaimer: All belongs to Tolkein. (Except random college, but I can't imagine why he'd want that.)**

**Speaking of random college, it is nonexistent. Completely fictional. I needed the marine acedemy and the flight school right next to it for plot reasons; I don't there's a real college like that.**

**(Oh my Eru, that was a long Author's Note. I just can't shut up.)**


	5. Getting to Know You

Just slightly outside the college campus, Ilene and Zephyr were lying on their backs in the crunchy fall leaves blanketing the ground.

"Look, Astrogeek," Zephyr pointed up at a cloud, "That one looks just like Saturn."

"No, Flyboy, it doesn't," Ilene retorted, "It looks like any ringed gas giant. Could be from any solar system with one."

"Yes, but as a culture reference, it would have to Saturn because that's the one most people are familiar with," he persisted.

"Are we talking about pop culture or astronomer culture?"

"Ah, the technicalities! You kill me, Astrogeek."

Awkward silence had reigned as the two walked to a clear spot, desperately searching their minds for the right questions to ask. After reaching the clearing, Zephyr had flopped on his back had patted the ground next to him for Ilene to lie down. She had sighed and sat down as well, thinking of nothing better to do, when Zephyr tried to convince her that a cloud was Saturn.

"Flyboy?" Zephyr asked with a smug smile a minute later.

"Astrogeek?" Ilene responded in kind, but she found the nickname to be annoying rather than endearing.

"Fair enough," he said, "I'll keep calling you Astrogeek, and you can call me Flyboy any time you like."

Ilene rolled her eyes, _"There's just no arguing with this guy. Although, I have gotten used to worse nicknames before."_

"Aren't we supposed to be getting to know each other?" she said.

"Yes," Zephyr answered, rolling over so that he could see Ilene better, "Why don't you tell me about yourself?"

"Why don't you go first?" Ilene rolled over to be on even ground with him.

"Ladies first, Astrogeek."

"Please. Only when it suits your fancy. You first." And then, "I could do this all day."

"I guess we have learned something about each other," Zephyr said mischievously.

"What?" Ilene said, though she already knew the answer.

"We're both-" Zephyr started.

"Stubborn as an ox," they finished together. Obviously, both had been told this exact thing before. Both smiled slightly, with something in common, it would be so much easier to go on from here.

"So where are you from?" Zephyr asked.

Ilene answered, despite being irked that he managed to ask the first question, "A tiny little farming town in Idaho." She asked his question back at him and added one of her own, determined to one-up the smug bastard, "Where are you from? Why become a pilot?"

He smiled, clearly seeing what Ilene had done, and responded, "I'm from a small town in Alaska. You can only get anywhere by flying, and I always wanted to fly so far away, into the clouds that danced and played in the sky."

"What are you doing all the way over here on the east coast?" Ilene said, incredulous.

Zephyr smiled slyly, "Not so fast. I get to ask you a question of my own first. Why are you an astrophysicist? And, hmm. What else? What's your favorite food?"

"The stars were crystal clear in the Idaho sky, and I wanted to know more about them and why they twinkled down on us. I like muffins. Now tell me."

"What kind of muffins, Astrogeek?"

They went on like this for quite a while, asking and answering questions. By the time Ilene got up and pulled the leaves out of her hair to go to class, she felt that she knew Zephyr better than anybody else she had met in her life. Even the irritating nickname was starting to grow on her. In fact, she would have even considered him a friend.

However, whenever there is happiness in the world, there is an equal amount of unhappiness elsewhere. It doesn't matter if it is sadness or anger, but it must be there. Miles and miles away from Ilene's happy fall east coast university, there was a college in the Great Plains of America. In this college, there was a boy who was feeling a mixture of both sadness and anger strong enough to balance out Zephyr and Ilene's happiness.

He had the same blonde ponytail as Zephyr, the same lanky build, and the same sparkling blue eyes. In fact, he looked to be either his twin or doppelganger. But where Zephyr's eyes sparkled with hope and happiness and joy, his burned with passion and ambition and revenge. Revenge for crimes against him that seemed too great for anyone who had only recently celebrated their twentieth birthday. Revenge so strong it could even be described as a hatred for the world.

In some ways, his hatred could be understood. Unbeknownst to the party which had breakfasted together, they had all been adopted; all from the same place and under the same incredibly mysterious circumstances. The headlines for the adoption of Jojo, the eldest read "NEWBORN WITH NO PARENTS ADOPTED". When thirteen more babies like this happened over the years, they became a source of many conspiracies, and all but one of them was adopted by a loving family seeking adventure. Obviously, the one never adopted was the boy with revenge in his eyes and hate in his heart. Eventually, a large New Jersey foster home took pity on the blonde baby who couldn't seem to get adopted and took him in. It was a state funded home, and many children had passed through it before, but during his time, they were low on money. The boy managed to scrape enough money out of science fair scholarships, jobs, and petty thievery from his fellow orphans and people on the streets to go to school and major in nuclear physics.

He was drawn to destruction. Several of the foster home psychiatrists had talked to him about it, but he could never explain. He liked it when other people's work ceased to be. He loved the elegance of a well executed destroying. He was addicted to taking away other people's prize possessions and wrecking them. He especially loved it when people noticed that his destroying skills made him rather good at building as well.

He felt a great deal of in injustice in his life. The first: not being noticed for his talents most of the time. The second: not being adopted by a loving and caring family like his fellows. The third: being picked on at school because of his incredible intelligence and antisocialism. The fourth: being saddled with the most horrible of names humanly possible.

All of the unnamed children to pass through that foster home were named after Greek and Roman mythology; there had been Hercules, Athena, Venus, Apollo, and Perseus. So many other unnamed children had been through before that they were running out of unused names. The few left would not be given to any child wishing for normal and healthy development.

The boy's name was Thanatos.

The Angel of Death.

**So this is my guilt chapter. I have a ton of excuses for why its been three weeks since I uploaded, but you don't care. Also, I really could have done better on this one, but I didn't. So sue me.**

**Actually, I like the way the story is developing so far. I think the next chapter will be all Thanatos and his life. Not three chapters in row. I don't think I could last that long without writing Arthur or Zephyr. They're quite fun. (This is where that chart I suggested last chapter will come in handy.)**

**For those of you who care "What kind of muffins, Astrogeek?" is my favorite sentence that I've written. I like it quite a lot.**

**And, okay I must say this. If you can't tell who Ilene, Zephyr, and Thanatos are, it's time to reread the Silmarilion. Just saying. Later plot will depend on you knowing the human identities of the Valar.**

**Also, all my love to Caranthir, the unloved Feanorian.**


	6. An Angel Made of Death

Thanatos was not liked. He had known that his entire life and had learned to make peace with it at an early age, but sometimes, he still longed for the joy that only companionship could bring. But with people's strange aversion to him, the most he could do was scare them. When he was younger, he used that to his advantage; he made himself child ruler of his foster home through fear. All the children did as he commanded because they were scared of him. This simple taste of power caused him to hunger for more. He went to college to get a degree in nuclear physics, and knew more about controlled destruction than even his professors.

At college, everybody could tell right from the start that he was different. He didn't advertise that he was from a foster home, and, not having any friends, nobody ever asked him about his parents. They didn't know that part of him, but something about him seemed inhuman. It was nothing anybody could point out, but he wasn't like them. So, the other students stayed as far away as possible, and Thanatos was lonelier than ever. It was no surprise that when somebody came and talked to him of their own free will, a small, hidden part of him rejoiced.

On the very same Thursday that Ilene and Zephyr discovered a shared stubbornness on the east coast, Thanatos was eating his usual breakfast at eight-thirty, precisely, when she sat down next to him. She was nobody Thanatos had ever seen, and he didn't recognize her from any of his classes. At first, Thanatos just thought she was part of some freshman dare and ignored her, but then she spoke. To him. Voluntarily.

"Hello, Master."

Thanatos jumped and looked behind himself. Nobody voluntarily spoke to him. Not sure of what to do with somebody who would, he decided to try his standard glare-them-down-until-they-go-away look. The girl tilted her head slightly to one side and smiled ferally. Seeing that she wasn't going anywhere, Thanatos switched tactics and tried talking to her.

"What do you want with me?" he asked her.

"I exist to serve you, Master. I only want what you want." She smiled again. By this point, Thanatos was getting a little creeped out.

He experimentally glared at her again, "I'd like you to go back to your silly little freshman friends and stop bothering me. Your stupid pranks have gone on long enough."

"Is that all you require of me, Master?" she tilted her head to the other side.

Thanatos was now seriously annoyed as well as creeped out, and his eyebrows had slipped far enough down his face to mostly obscure his eyes. "Yes. Bug off."

"I will return when you have need of me, Master." She slipped off and disappeared into the crowd of the cafeteria.

Thanatos rolled his eyes, brushed some blonde hairs that had come loose of his ponytail away from his face, and returned to his breakfast. Other students liked to dare their friends to come near him and bother him. He didn't know what he did that made him so intimidating that he was a challenge for the brave to accept, but he wished he could be more so, so that even the brave would not approach him on these ridiculous quests.

Still, that girl hadn't shown even a tremor of fear like the others, and she projected an aura of what seemed to be unflinching subservience. Thanatos didn't know how he would handle her if she showed up again. For now, he'd get on with his classes and hope that she wouldn't bother him anymore. He gathered up his notes and papers, slipped them into his bag and left the cafeteria.

About three in the afternoon, Thanatos was wiping his brow in annoyance. Knowing more about the art of nuclear fission and fusion than just about anybody else, he had been recruited by his professor to give a lecture to a small group of middle schoolers on a field trip about the importance of the campus's nuclear reactor. The ignorant children had questioned him incessantly on ridiculous matters, such as if he could build a bomb in his backyard. He didn't know how he managed to make it through the session without strangling anyone, but the professor gave him credit and free lunch for it. He imagined the included brownie to be the dismembered body parts of the infuriating children as he ate it.

Getting up off the bench he was sitting on, Thanatos saw the girl again. She was standing somewhere across the park and smiling at Thanatos in way that deeply unnerved him. She tilted her head to one side and switched her smile to quizzical, as if to ask if Thanatos would let her come near now. Curious about who she was and why she followed him, he nodded.

She came over to his bench, smiled at him again, and asked, "Yes, Master? What do you require of me?"

"First, I'd like you to stop smiling." Thanatos waited as she wrestled her mouth into a more normal position. Deciding to play along with whatever it was that she wanted, he said, "I would like to know why you have chosen to show yourself to me at this time. You have had years before to speak, and yet you have remained hidden." He glared at her as if to accuse her of some heinous crime.

She actually looked briefly consternated before forgetting his orders and flashing him with another smile and continuing, "You seem more ready to take up our quest again than you ever have before, Master."

"That isn't the reason." Thanatos was starting to enjoy this, and she had stopped smiling all together, which he figured was her version of nervous sweating.

"I'm sorry, Master! You know I have never been as strong as you, and I only just was able to come back. You see, I went looking for you all those ages ago, and I spent myself up. I couldn't gather the strength to assist you when you first reappeared, but now I can. Master, we could-"

"Enough," Thanatos cut off her apologies and silently filed her ramblings for later. "You are not telling me the entire truth." He was really starting to enjoy the feeling of being in charge.

The girl turned a shade of red that had previously only existed in cartoons. "The others are being reawaked by the one of least likelihood. I thought, Master, you would want to win the world while they were still doubting their reality."

Thanatos must have looked incredibly confused because the girl's face became very sad, but that was quickly covered up by a layer of pity.

"Master?" she said, "Do you know who are?"

Thanatos indignantly gave her the name given to him by the foster home. "Of course I know who I am. I am Thanatos Grey."

She smiled, sadly this time. "You have no idea who you are, who I am, or who the others are," she said, "but don't worry, Master. I can show you."

"Who are you to tell me who I am? You haven't even told me who you are!"

She smiled deviously, "I don't need to tell you who I am. I don't exist except as your faithful servant, Master."

"You have to at least have a name." Thanatos was growing increasingly frustrated with her.

"It changes," she shrugged and smiled.

Thanatos gritted his teeth. "What is it now?" he growled.

"I have none. I told you, Master, I just came back from nothingness. I have not yet had the chance to become known. Nobody has given me a name." She smiled again.

Thanatos was debating how much longer she should live: if she hadn't been around long enough to named, nobody would miss her. "What can I call you?"

"Maia," She smiled like this should be some inside joke they shared, "You can call me Maia."

"Fine, Maia. If don't know who I am, then tell me."

"It starts with a story. I'm sorry, Master, but you'll have to be patient."

"Fine, just tell me."

"Starting twenty-two years ago, newborn babies starting randomly appearing, a few a year for four years. Fourteen babies appeared in all, but-"

"I know this story. It's the story of where I came from." Thanatos hated being reminded of his bizarre beginnings at the foster home. He knew the other children did it to remind him that, while he may have been intimidating, he would never belong. Why this stranger would tell him, he didn't know. "Why are you telling me this?"

"You'll know soon enough," she smiled. "May I continue, Master?"

Thanatos nodded. She continued as if he had never interrupted her, "But they never appeared at the same time. Always on different days, at different times, but in exactly the same place. Except once. Two boys in the Place, like twins. They even looked identical." She turned to Thanatos, as if waiting for a challenge.

"I haven't heard this part before," he admitted.

"Of course not, Master. It's confidential." She smiled. "One of the twins wasn't adopted. The only one who wasn't and he was half of a set of twins. Of course, I couldn't let this happen. I wasn't completely real, but I could still use some tools of _persuasion_ to convince a deluded foster care worker in New Jersey."

"That basically catches us up to today, doesn't it?" Thanatos didn't want to hear any more of his past. Half formed memories in dreams were bad enough, but being told outright brought fresh pain back.

"Not for the others."

"Others?"

"The other mysteriously appearing children. They have pasts too." Maia smiled. "Would you like to hear about them?"

"Yes. Tell me everything. I want to know where they went and what they have to say about their strange births."

"All of them were adopted by young people who thirsted for adventure. They thought it would be exciting to have a magic child, but later, they realized their precious gems did not show any supernatural inclinations. As the children grew older and started school, their adoptive parents decided to keep the story of their origin secret from the poor children so that they could fit in better. The little things were coddled as they were raised and eventually somehow made it to the same city for post-secondary schooling."

"They don't know anything about the past?"

"No."

"Then how can they help me?"

"There are only thirteen others." Maia stated.

"So what?" Thanatos couldn't see where she was going with this and it hurt him deeply that the others who had come from nowhere had loving parents who tried to keep them happy and safe.

"There are supposed to be fourteen!" she raged.

"How do you know?"

"Because I know where you came from beyond the place. I know your true origin. And there were fourteen other people who were supposed to be here!"

"Where do I come from?" Thanatos demanded.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, but I know you'll soon find out for yourself."

"That's not helpful!" He banged his fist down on the park bench. "At least tell me what we're going to do!"

Maia smiled deviously, "That I can do. We are going to get one of the others. She has to be the reason only thirteen appeared; she always anticipated you better than the others. We will capture her and bring her-"

"Bring her where? I have no place for a prisoner."

"I built a place. We will have no problems, and, if she cooperates, she can solve all of ours."

"Who is she?" Thanatos didn't know why he would go along with this crazy, illegal idea, but he wanted to find a place where other people didn't inch away from him like he was poisonous, and he hoped that this girl might be the key.

"I don't know, but I know that she will have starlight in her eyes."

Far away, Ilene gazed into the screen of her laptop, working on her astronomy essay. The stars on the screen were reflected perfectly in each of her eyes.

**Yep. A chapter.**

**Actually, I was getting annoyed with somebody I'm following/watching/whatever for not updating, and then I realized that I hadn't updated for two whole months. Karma was getting to me. I meant to finish this a month and half ago, but I didn't. Hey, better late than never. Happy Star Wars Reads Day, which is an actual holiday and it's actually happening the day (well, night) I'm posting this.**

**I like Thanatos in a sort he-wants-to-kill-the-world-oh-hey-that's-cool kind of way. Urg. He's the hardest to write, but now I'm going to want to write him. Flllrrrgg.**

**What would the ultimate dark lord have for breakfast? I really have no idea. It's probably a donut (doughnut?) because he's evil, and donuts and evil for diets. You decide.**

**Disclaimer Thing: All belongs to Tolkien. Thanatos's college is also fictional. I had to make Maia up because I couldn't think of/find a good Maiar servant eternally loyal to that particular master. She's a bit like Ilmare for Varda, but for *ahem* somebody else.**

**Love to this story, which feels so neglected because its lazy author didn't touch it for a month.**


	7. Tiny Sausages

"Hey, Ilene!"

Ilene quickly saved her progress on her projected star map and paper; whatever her roommate, Megan, wanted to say, it would take a while. "Yeah?"

"Okay, so if purple is connoted with royalty, blue connoted with sadness, red with power, what would that make a blue-eyed ginger who insists on wearing purple all the time?"

"A powerful person who regrets having inherited the role." Ilene spun her chair around to face Megan.

"Okay." Megan stopped to write this down. "What color would you trust the most?"

"Beige with hints of pale orange."

"Okay. Hair color of the month?" Megan had naturally pale and silvery hair, so every month, she would dye it a different color to add personality and distinguish her from the other students.

"Red again, but brighter this time. You've got an interview and want them to know that it's the same person, but that you are individual."

"Okay. It's actually a party, by the way. So like this?" Megan was not a talented artist, which she knew, but the crude stick figure got her point across.

"I was thinking less orange and in a less vivid color."

"That's why you're a scientist and I'm a writer," Megan said, "Also, we need to plan your outfit."

"What?" Ilene was an exceptionally intelligent person, but most of the time, she had no idea what Megan was talking about.

"You said you'd go, remember? I asked you at least two weeks ago and you said you had no plans and this is the biggest night of my career and-"

"You're still a student, Meagan."

"But my book has already been published and I need to socialize with everyone associated with it so that they'll publish the sequel."

Ilene groaned, "Megan, don't you have any closer friends who do better at socializing?"

"Of course I do. But they're all at parties. It will be Saturday, and like you said, they are better at socializing."

Ilene hated it when Megan used logic, and had spent the last year she had known her trying to avoid Megan's book. Megan never stopped talking about it, and when she had plot issues, which was frequently, she would talk it out with Ilene. It was no wonder Ilene had no memory of this party.

Desperately, Ilene asked, "What about your boyfriend?"

"Oh, he's already coming. I just need a friend to look well rounded," Megan said offhandedly, "You should take a date, too, so you don't look like a lonely idiot. I know this guy in my History of Medieval Literature class who might be interested. If-"

"It's okay; I know who I'll ask." Ilene said quickly. She had already gone a blind date with somebody in one of Megan's classes and had no desire to repeat the unpleasant experience. If she really did absolutely have to go with somebody, she could just ask Zephyr; he would be preferable to another of Megan's classmates.

"Okay. Make sure he doesn't hate you. Now for your dress, I've got some blue ones that my mom gave me. I never wore them because blue's not really my color, so nobody will recognize them…"

* * *

Thanatos, much as he enjoyed being waited on hand and foot, was really getting tired of Maia trying to follow him everywhere he went. He was pretty sure he could manage to get himself to his bedroom, and he didn't need any help slicing his dinner. He wanted their plans to be done as soon as possible so Maia would have something better to do than be with him all the time.

"How much longer until we're ready?" he asked.

"Just a little more time, Master. This Saturday will be the opportune time for us to proceed with the plan." She responded with a smile.

"Why not sooner? Friday seems just as good as Saturday."

"It must be Saturday. Trust me, Master."

While he may have been growing impatient with Maia's constant clinginess, Thanatos was also looking forward to finally meeting somebody like him. He didn't quite understand why they had to start Saturday. If the way human beings treated this starlight girl was as bad as the way they treated him, he was pretty sure he could just ask her to come with him and explain what made their lives so bereft of happiness and she would comply. After all, she would sympathize with loneliness, an emotion she surely had a surplus of.

All Thanatos really wanted was a friend.

* * *

"Are you sure this thing can actually fly with two people in it?" Ilene dubiously asked Zephyr.

"Of course it can. This was the first plane I learned to fly." The touch of pride in Zephyr's voice completely undid whatever effect the wounded tone might have had.

"It doesn't look very sky-worthy." Ilene was tempted to kick it and see what happened, but she was too afraid that the wing might fall off.

"Trust me. She's the most sky-worthy thing in this hangar." His point was ruined when a flock of pigeons took off to find a better place to search for food. "If you don't want to fly with me, we can always do something else."

Being the person she was, Ilene took this as a challenge. "Only if you're too afraid that your prize plane will collapse after it leaves the ground. But I did think that when you said you had a private plane, you meant you had a plane, not a pile of duct tape and weld scars."

"Hey, Astrogeek, they used duct tape to fix Apollo Thirteen. I can use it to hold down bolts."

"They used the duct tape in the building of an air scrubber, not anything directly involved in flying."

"It still worked. You going to get in, or are we going to go eat some food?"

"I'm going," Ilene said, climbing through the open door, "but if I die in this lump, I will make eternity miserable for you."

"I know you will, Astrogeek," Zephyr responded, smiling, "Okay, wait here. I need to do some quick checks."

"You mean apply more duct tape?"

"Yes. Now pass me the roll. It's over there somewhere."

Ilene tossed him a half used up roll of duct tape and thought about how if she died in this run down plane, at least she wouldn't have to go to Megan's party.

Megan's party! Ilene had completely forgotten, again. It was a wonder why Megan would even trust her to remember and show up to something so important to her.

"Hey, Zephyr!" she called out.

"Yeah?" he responded, ripping off a piece of duct tape and patting it down over a bolt.

"It's Friday, right?"

"Yeah, Friday, and yesterday was Thursday, and tomorrow is-"

"Okay, I get it. What are you doing tomorrow?"

"Why? Can't get enough of me?" he said, hopping into the plane and grinning a bit.

"Flyboy, I've already had enough of you," she said, "I just need a bit of a favor."

"What kind of favor? One that involves my immense talent with planes?"

"No."

"My incredible charm?"

"No."

"My irresistible good looks?"

"Let's just assume that it has nothing to do with any of your qualities and more to do with me not wanting to spend my evening listening to somebody talk about why a certain region of England had the best literature in the medieval period."

"Ugh." Zephyr looked as horrified as Ilene had been after that disastrous blind date. "Okay, anything to save you from that."

"I need you to come to one of the parties with the publishers of my roommate Megan's book."

"That Megan and that book?"

"Yeah."

"I hate parties."

"You just said you were willing to do anything to save me from my fate."

"That doesn't even have anything to do with medieval English literature."

"Of course it does."

"How?"

"Well if I don't get somebody to come with, Megan's going to set me up and make me go with another of her classmates, and so really I just need-"

"So you're asking me out on a date?" Zephyr looked as though he had just won a major battle.

"N-"

"In that case, yes." he said, cutting Ilene off.

Ilene decided not to argue anymore, in case she did end up stuck with medieval literature again.

Zephyr was almost whistling as he finished preflight checks from inside the tiny plane, and when they took off, Ilene was pretty sure it was due to his own buoyancy and not the engine.

"Do you stand corrected, Astrogeek?" he asked, "Is my baby sky-worthy enough for you?"

"Evidently, we aren't plummeting to our deaths, so I guess the answer would be yes." She responded.

"Of course she is," Zephyr responded smugly. He added, "Now, about that date…"

Ilene rolled her eyes and braced herself for whatever was coming.

* * *

The next day, Ilene went to lead Zephyr from the spot under the drama department stairs to Megan's car. She fidgeted as she walked: Megan was slightly shorter than she was and the dress didn't sit quite right on her shoulders.

"Nice ribbon, Flyboy," she called out.

"Yeah? Looks like you could use more than I do, Astrogeek," Zephyr responded, twirling said ribbon in his fingers.

Ilene scowled at him; she knew she could have done a better job of moving her hair out her face, but it wouldn't stay when she moved it.

"Hey, don't worry. We'll fix your hair in the car." Zephyr said, moving to leave.

"We'll fix my hair?" Ilene took the lead to Megan's car.

"Just me, really. Clearly, you have no idea how to manage hair properly."

"What makes you think you can do a better job?"

"For starters, my hair is longer than yours."

"Barely."

"Also, it looks much neater."

"Clearly, you haven't experienced hair quite like mine."

"Clearly, you need help to fix that."

"Maybe we should fix your crooked tie before we fix my hair."

"My tie's not crooked, Astrogeek."

"Check again, Flyboy."

"Backwards ties are huge in fashion this year. Also, backwards isn't the same thing as crooked."

"Would you have actually believed me if I said that you'd screwed up so royally as to get your tie on backwards?"

"Would you think I'm lying if I said yes?"

"Yes. Hi Megan. Hi Lewis," Ilene said, waving at Megan and her boyfriend as they reached her car.

"Ilene, what happened to your hair? Were you mauled by an angry badger on your way here?" Ilene thought Megan was greatly exaggerating the condition of her hair.

"Hey Ilene," Lewis said coming out from behind the car.

"_Lewis?_" Zephyr said incredulously.

"Zephyr!" the two embraced and laughed good naturedly like old friends.

Zephyr punched Lewis in the shoulder, "Why didn't you tell me you were in this state, you filthy animal?"

Lewis laughed, "Why didn't you tell me you were here? You weren't exactly clear about where you were going to get your commercial license."

"Wait, what?" As was usual with Megan, Ilene had no idea what was going on.

"Astrogeek, meet my childhood best friend," Zephyr said, pointing to Lewis.

"I didn't know you were from Alaska, Lewis," Ilene said.

"Well, he is. Coincidences are funny that way. Get in the car," Megan said, "And fix your hair disaster, Ilene."

"Yeah, come on, Astrogeek. I'm going to have to work some kind of magic to fix that hair."

Ilene gritted her teeth and clambered into the backseat, with Zephyr following and exchanging joking insults with Lewis. Megan climbed into the car, had a look cross her face, and dashed back to the dorm. A bit later, she came out with the keys.

"Sorry. Forgot these."

Ilene frowned. She could have sworn she had seen the keys in Megan's hand as she and Zephyr were approaching. She looked at Zephyr; he also looked puzzled. Both wondered what Megan had actually gone back to the dorm for.

Only Lewis didn't seem confused, "Only you could forget your keys on the way to the biggest publishing party of your career," he laughed.

Ilene decided she probably didn't want to know what Megan had gone back for and put it out of her mind, though it continually burned at her curiosity.

"Turn around, Astrogeek. I can't work hair magic from the side," Zephyr said.

Ilene obliged, and a bit later, true to his word, Zephyr had worked magic on her wild mane. She had no idea how he did it, but he managed to pull it up and coax it away from Ilene's face with only his ribbon and Megan's hairbrush.

"Admit, Astrogeek. You look fabulous," he boasted.

"Well, yes I do. Though that may not be because of you," Ilene grinned.

"Because I did it. You're wearing my dress," Megan said, "don't slouch like you're doing now at the party."

"No, no. it's definitely the hair. She wasn't able to pull this off before I fixed her hair."

Lewis interceded, "It's the way the colors of the ribbon in her hair blend nicely with the dress and her own eyes."

"No, I just look this good all the time."

"Whatever gets you to sleep at night, Astrogeek." Ilene stuck her tongue out at him and Zephyr reciprocated the gesture and continued, "Not everyone can look as great as me."

"But they can at least put their tie on straight."

"Why don't you fix it?"

"Why don't I let you just embarrass yourself?"

"Because I will be right next to you the whole night long," Zephyr said, leaning closer to Ilene to emphasize his point, "and my stupidity will reflect on you."

"At least you recognize the problem," Ilene sighed and undid the knot to fix his tie.

* * *

Thanatos adjusted his bow tie. He added the offending neckwear his ever increasing list of things he wanted to annihilate utterly.

"What are we doing at this party, again?" he asked Maia.

"Waiting," she responded cryptically.

"For what?" Thanatos added Maia to his list for the seventh time tonight.

"The girl, Master. The one who will help us."

"At a publishing party?"

"Trust me, Master. I know my sources. She will be here."

Thanatos sighed and wondered if an abstract concept could be annihilated utterly. He really loathed waiting.

* * *

As they pulled into a valet line, Megan quizzed the occupants of the car on what she wanted them to do tonight.

"Lewis, where will you be tonight?"

"At your side, where I will compliment your many talents and talk excitedly of the sequel, without revealing any spoilers."

"Ilene, your role?"

"Wander around, talk to as many different people as possible, same as Lewis."

"You forgot stand up straight," Zephyr added.

"Make sure you do that, Ilene," Megan reminded her, "Zephyr?"

"Stick close to Ilene all night long and make sure she does what she's supposed to."

"Right. Don't forget to socialize with other people too. Okay, let's go." Megan tossed her synthetic red hair over one shoulder and strode toward the entrance.

Climbing out of the car, Zephyr offered Ilene his arm, "Shall we?"

Ilene took hold of it, "We shall."

* * *

Thanatos saw her coming into the party. Having never seen the girl before or even had her described to him, it was a shaky recognition, but he knew instinctively that it was her. Who else would be clothed in the color of the midnight sky with a piece of dusk trapped in the blackness of her hair? Who else could have each and every star in the galaxy flare up in her eyes as she laughed at something her companion said?

Thanatos felt his heart tremor at the sight of the girl, like some long lost friend had been spotted. But that couldn't compare to the way it suddenly jerked in his chest when he finally caught sight of her companion.

It was him. Thanatos watched himself walk into the building with the starlight girl. He touched his body to make sure he was still standing by the bar. He felt real, so who could have taken his short blonde ponytail, his blue eyes, his gangly build, and his long fingers? What was he doing?

Thanatos was so wrapped in his shock that he almost missed Maia's sharp gasp of anger.

"I wasn't told that there would be two of them!"

The wheels in Thanatos's head started turning in overdrive to figure out what she meant. The answer was so plainly obvious that Thanatos felt a strong desire to kick something when he figured it out. "That's my twin brother?"

Maia nodded, "As far as you are concerned, Master, yes."

"You didn't know he'd be here." Thanatos didn't ask a question; he already knew the answer.

"No, Master."

"Will he be of any use or affect our plans?"

"No, Master. I've been tracking him since his adoption. He has no more idea of who he is than you do, and he was never privy to her secrets."

"Should we take him anyways, as a witness?"

"Master, where would we keep him?"

"The backup cell," Thanatos scowled.

Maia smiled, "Master, this disaster may have just turned into a delicious opportunity."

* * *

Zephyr and Ilene leaned awkwardly against the bar. Neither of them being particularly extroverted, they didn't seek out conversational partners. A few people approached them, and they extolled Megan's talents until they left. Being on student budgets, they didn't have enough money to buy drinks, even they hadn't been below the legal drinking age, and they sipped on complimentary water. After a while, they had taken up a guessing game to try to determine facts about each other.

"Okay, um, blue," Zephyr guessed.

"No, silver," Ilene said.

"Really? Silver?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Just felt like you'd really like dark blue. Like your dress."

"This is Megan's dress."

"I know, but you like the color. You were wearing a blue jacket when we went flying in my plane."

"Yeah, but I like silver better."

"What's my favorite animal?"

"Easy. Bird."

"Yeah, but what kind of bird, Astrogeek?"

"A puffin."

"What?"

"A small bird from the north pole region."

"I know what a puffin is. Why would you think a puffin is my favorite animal?"

"I really don't know."

"Then why would you say puffin?"

"Because I like puffins."

"Why do you like puffins, of all birds?"

"They seem mildly anachronistic."

"What makes you think that puffins are anachronistic?"

"Their beaks."

"Astrogeek, are you sure your head is attached firmly?"

"Have you checked yours lately? I think you might want to apply some duct tape there."

"Maybe I'll apply some to your head, too."

"Then we can both scream in agony as the tape rips our hair out."

"I always love a dash of agony with my imported spring water," he said, raising the bottle to his lips.

Ilene laughed a bit and said, "I think it's better with mini sausages."

"Why don't you go get us some, Astrogeek?"

"I think I will. After all, we'll probably be at this party until we die." Ilene crossed the room, deftly stepping around other people to the tiny snack table.

When she reached the snack table, she saw something that confused even more than Megan usually did. Zephyr was leaning against the wall, like he'd been there a while. She had almost called his name when she saw that unlike Zephyr, this man was wearing a bow tie. Zephyr was wearing a tie, now straightened.

Instead she said, "I didn't know Zephyr had a brother."

The man said, "He doesn't know either," and deftly cupped one hand over Ilene's mouth while using the other to pull her out the back exit.

* * *

Zephyr started forward as he saw Ilene get kidnapped by someone who had stolen his appearance, but was stopped by a hand on his forearm.

"You better come quietly, if you know what's best for you," a girl next to him said softly.

"Why?" Zephyr knew it was stupid to ask questions, but he didn't know what else to do.

"Because we have the police off on a wild goose chase, and building security is passed out upstairs. There is no one to come save you or her. And I don't need to take all of you with me." She smiled and revealed a tiny knife.

Chills ran down Zephyr's back as he nodded and followed his abductor. She smiled ferally.

"Good boy. Perhaps your punishment won't have to be too painful."

"What punishment? What have I done wrong?"

She just smiled and led him out.

**First of all, it should be noted that this chapter was a pain in the butt to write.**

**Second, apologies for being almost two months late with an update.**

**Third, thanks to the anonymous guest reviewer, whose one or two review sparked me to finish this thing. Anon, I was going to send you an email detailing how I would have a post within the week, but you are an anon.**

**This is a fluffy chapter. Truth must be spoken. It also has a bit of a cliffhanger. Maybe this time I'll feel more inspired to know what happens after the cliffhanger and actually update on time. Nag me if I don't. Anon, you know what to do.**

**This is a buttload of words. Enjoy this buttload because I don't think I'll actually have to write another chapter this long for this story. Ideally, I would split this up into a lot of little chapters, but they would be too short. Also, the changing POV was a butt to write. (too many butts, arggg)**

**Plot yeah.**

**Disclaimer- If was Tolkien, I would not be posting on fanfiction. (I would be dead) (Megan and Lewis are, incidentally, not OCs *cough*hint*cough*)**


	8. Missing

Ilene tried to struggle or cry out for help, but the man's hand over her mouth cut off her voice and her struggles were no help at all. She tried kicking her abductor, but he just kicked her back. Although, the sound of his grunt of pain was very satisfying, he kept dragging her out through the door, where a security guard lay on the ground, snoring, and into the parking lot. There, Ilene tried to bite his hand. He just got frustrated and hit her on the head. Sensing an opportunity, Ilene decided to pretend to pass out. Her captor dropped her as she fell to the ground, and stooped over to pick her up again.

This time, he forgot to put his hand over Ilene's mouth. She opened her mouth to draw in a breath to scream, but his hand clamped itself firmly over the scream before it could escape.

"No tricks," he said, looking into Ilene's eyes as a warning.

Ilene gave him her best death glare and resigned herself to being carted off to his car.

* * *

Zephyr was too numb to scream and too shocked to try to attack his and Ilene's kidnappers. He walked blindly, following the girl to a nondescript car.

"Don't forget your seatbelt," she said, pointing out the backseat.

"What? Not the trunk?" Not thinking straight, Zephyr said the only thing that came to mind.

"Wouldn't want to draw too much attention to ourselves, would we?" she smiled ferally.

* * *

Thanatos was growing impatient with the struggling girl. He had given up on forcing her to walk as soon as they were out of sight of the party goers, and had resorted to carrying her to the car, but still she managed to be what an almost unbelievable amount of trouble. He grunted and shifted her weight on his shoulder and wished for a roll of duct tape.

Having reached the car, he placed her on the ground. Pointing at the door, he said, "Get in," As an afterthought, he added "please."

She glared at him some more until he finally just shoved her in on top of her party companion. He moved over to his seat and sat down.

"Go," Thanatos said to Maia, who was already in the driver's seat.

* * *

"Have you seen them anywhere?" Megan asked Lewis.

"No. I even checked the bathroom. Nowhere in this whole building or even anywhere on this street," he responded.

"Are you sure you checked everywhere?"

"Yes. I even looked in the McDonalds down the street."

"And they're not by the car?" Megan's eyebrows drew close together in worry.

"No. You know what this means. He's woken up first."

"Who could have possibly woken him up? What eternally loyal servants does he have?"

"The one who came with him."

"Oh right," she said, "I know we promised Tulkas not to intervene-"

"Megan, we can't use those names."

"Fine. I know we promised not to intervene, but I think we need to wake the other Valar."

"Megan!"

"Nobody can understand us, Eonwe; we're speaking a language that hasn't been alive for centuries," she said emotionlessly, "and it must be done."

"I understand, but we need to call a meeting of the Maiar first. If all agree to speed up our actions, then that is what we will do," he said, gritting his teeth at the use of true names.

"I'm going to call Tulkas to the meeting to see what he says."

"Yes. Tell them it's an emergency and we must meet tonight."

"Eonwe, you know they will hardly ever agree to anything in an official meeting."

"I know. But we must go through the protocol before we even try to rescue them on our own."

* * *

"Absolutely not!"

"Why not, Osse? You always protest any forward direction of action-"

"Just because you couldn't manage to keep track of two unawakened Valar for one night-"

"What if your master went missing then? Your protests-"

"We can't just tell them who they are, they'll go crazy-"

"Like there was ever any other choice-"

"This is all a waste of time. I say-"

"ENOUGH!" bellowed Tulkas.

With mumbled apologies and gradual silence, the assembled crowd of Maiar silenced themselves.

"Thank you," he continued, "Uinen makes a fine point. If we tell these people that they are the forgotten gods from ages past, they will never believe us. However, we must also make them aware of their true identity as soon as possible, and move them away from each other so they will attract less attention."

"What if instead of moving them away from each other, we moved them slightly out of the realm of Earth, like we are now?" Melian proposed.

"Do you think they would actually survive the journey?" Tulkas asked.

"It seems highly unlikely."

"But Lord Tulkas," Olorin inquired, "If we move eleven people away from the same area where two have suddenly gone missing, people will definitely notice."

"Hmmm. Yes. This will have to be very carefully planned."

"Perhaps we could arrange it so that they all go on journeys of personal discovery," Ilmare suggested.

"We could use Thanksgiving next week as a cover," said Eonwe.

"What if we kept them together, but moved them, not out of this realm, but to a place where they will not be seen?" asked Melian.

"Much better idea, Melian. I like it," Tulkas said, "We will all work together to move them to a safe house by this time next week. Everybody, form a plan to move your old Valar masters out. Eonwe, Ilmare, come over here."

"Yes, Lord Tulkas?" they inquired as they walked toward him.

"I know what you're planning to do. You cannot go off and rescue them on your own. It's far too dangerous."

"What do you propose we do instead, Lord Tulkas?" asked Eonwe.

"The other Maiar will only search out and rescue those Valar they associated most closely with in ages past. You will help me rescue those not closely associated with any of the Maiar I would trust for such a task, namely Aule, Namo, and Orome."

"My Lord?" asked Ilmare, confused.

"I don't want you two going off to attack Melkor on your own."

"But, my Lord, why would we plan such foolishness?" Eonwe said innocently.

Tulkas looked at him and continued, "To keep you two away from Melkor, I want Ilmare to find a safe house and take Aule to it. Eonwe, take Namo and Orome to the safe house. Don't go looking for trouble, either one of you."

Tulkas watched the rest of the Maiar leave to go find the Valar. Sighing, he allowed his physical form to vanish once more.

"_Ah, Varda. If only you thought to share your plans before leaving_," he thought, wishing that she would have given him at least a hint.

* * *

"Has anybody seen Ilene or Zephyr?" Trista asked the assembled group of people one week after their first meeting with each other.

"Yes," Dustin said very softly.

"Where?" demanded Ryan.

Holding up two missing person fliers, Dustin said, "I found these while I was grocery shopping on Tuesday."

Everybody gasped sharply except Arthur, who just looked abashed.

Noticing his lack of shock, Terra integrated him, "Did you already know about this, Arthur?"

"Yeah. Ilene's roommate found me yesterday and told me about it. She said she'd tell the rest of you at breakfast," he responded.

"That's the creepiest thing ever," Vanessa said.

Helen finished Vanessa's thought, "Yes. I would like to know exactly how she was able to find you and how she knew that Ilene had spoken to you in the past. It could have even been her who-"

"She said she was in league with T."

The silence that followed this revelation threatened to black out the conversation of the people next to them. All of these college students wanted to know more about T, but they also feared him more than anything else.

"Let's go meet her, then," said Penny said quietly.

The rest nodded consent, and they stepped into the cafeteria together.

* * *

"I hope you know what you're doing, Ilmare. There can be no going back now," said Aiwendil.

"I know." Ilmare braced herself for the inevitable storm to follow what was about to be revealed to the Valar.

**I really don't like this chapter.**

**Seriously, nothing happens, and I couldn't find a good way to write it. Blegh.**

**On another note, when I first planned this story, I wasn't going to have so much involvement from the Maiar. But, I like their inclusion. (Will be better next chapter.)**

**And I got a sum total of ONE update for the last chapter and had a little panic attack that nobody read this story anymore. And then I was sad. And then I was all write, self, YOU read this story. So here is a chapter. Yep.**

**Disclaimer: Seriously, people, I don't own this.**


	9. Cells

"Here. I brought you some coffee," the man said, handing the cup to Ilene. She didn't respond, just glared at him. He continued, "I promise it's not drugged or anything." Ilene drank a sip.

Heartened by her sip of coffee, he proceeded, "I'm sorry that we had to kidnap you like this. I just want to know more about where I came from."

"How on Earth is kidnapping me going to help you discover your past?" Ilene was incredulous.

"I'll explain later," he said, "but first, what is your name?"

"You kidnapped me to learn about your past and don't even know my name?"

"My name is Thanatos," he prompted.

"Ilene," she sighed, thinking privately that Thanatos must have some kind of mental disorder.

"Thank you, Ilene. Maia wouldn't tell me your name. She said if you actually could help reawaken the past, I would just remember."

Ilene changed her mind and decided that Thanatos was either on drugs or clinically insane. "How can I possibly know anything about your past? I've never seen you before in my life."

"I don't know. I don't think you know who you are either."

"What are you talking about? I know exactly who I am."

"You just look like there's something missing."

"Probably because I've just been kidnapped!" Ilene shouted.

"You still don't know everything about your own past!" Thanatos yelled back at her.

"Try me!"

"You were adopted," he said, hoping to see some of the despair he had lived with his entire life cross her face.

"You think I didn't know that? I grew up in a tiny farming town. Gossip is easy to hear," she said, finding it mildly disturbing that he knew this and not her name, "What does that have to have to do with anything?"

"Read this. I think you'll find it very informative," Thanatos said, disgustedly throwing down a stack of newspapers, all blazed with a headline about the mysteriously appearing babies.

Ilene glared at his back as he retreated out of her cell. Curiosity demanded that she look at the papers, but her pride refused to allow her to do anything that Thanatos had commanded her to do. Eventually, her self-control faded and she began to read the stack of newspapers.

First, Ilene was shocked. Then she couldn't believe what she was reading. Surely Thanatos, who was definitely crazy anyway, had created fake newspapers about inexplicable babies. But could he manage to replicate the way the aged paper rolled or the yellow color it had obtained? Both of the solutions available to Ilene painted Thanatos with superhuman abilities.

She remembered the way the people of her town fell silent and stared at her as she walked past in the street all throughout her childhood. Could this tale of questionably human babies explain those frightened looks? Ilene hoped that this could be the truth. She didn't want to live her life as an ordinary human; she knew she had been built of something extraordinary.

Ilene mentally slapped herself, "_This is no time for your silly childish imaginings,"_ she thought, "_Grow up, Ilene. You are an ordinary human; nothing is going to change that. Stop trying to invent reasons for not fitting in."_ Taking a deep breath, she tried to commit herself to the thought of being standard, but her mind refused to accept that. She pushed her mind away and ignored those nagging doubts that had been building up since she had begun to write down her dreams.

* * *

Zephyr closed his eyes and mentally tried to stop himself from counting the number of tiles on the floor again. He knew how many there were, he knew where the half tiles were, and he knew which tile was coming slightly out of the floor. He knew how many tiles were black and how many were white. He also knew that none of the tiles was loose enough for him to dig it out of the floor with his fingernails.

Since being kidnapped, Zephyr had felt predominantly one emotion. Boredom. He was almost completely sure that his captors had never even planned on taking him; they seemed much more interested in Ilene, but he had had to come along as well as part of the whole process of kidnapping. He hoped that maybe they might torture him or interrogate him or something. Anything to alleviate the all-encompassing, mind-numbing boredom that gripped him.

Just as Zephyr was considering breaking one of his own toes to entertain himself, the man who looked exactly like him came in. Zephyr glared at him as if he had been personally responsible for stealing his own face.

"Here's some other clothes for you," the man said, throwing a wad of fabrics at Zephyr, "I didn't mean to leave you in here by yourself for so long."

Zephyr glared at him, hoping he might leave, and when he didn't, gruffly asked, "What do you want with Ilene?"

"You are a clever man, brother. Did you know that we are actually twins? That you are adopted?" the man said, evading his real question.

Zephyr ignored the remark about adoption, though it did throw into light the real reason for his fair hair in his dark Alaskan town and growled, "Just answer my question. What do you want and who are you?"

"You don't seem surprised to know that you were adopted. Did you already know, like the girl? She already knew. I suppose you'll want my name, but it's not very important, and I don't know your name either."

"Just tell me about Ilene!"

"She's off by herself getting over her temper issues. Tell me who you are. It's important."

"It's Zephyr."

"I'm called Thanatos. That makes us brothers in names as well, you know."

"I know about the Greek origins of my own name."

"Yes. Tell me, do you remember anything about you distant past, Zephyr?"

"I'm not giving you my childhood memories!" Zephyr said, disgusted.

"No, before that, or have you never read an old paper either?" Thanatos sneered.

"I try to avoid looking into mysteries that want to stay hidden or that don't exist."

"Here. Try these papers. Maybe then you'll fancy yourself a better detective." Thanatos threw a stack of newspapers at Zephyr's feet.

Zephyr looked at him, waiting for him to leave. He wouldn't. "Are you waiting for something?"

"No, I just didn't think you'd look exactly like me."

"You look like me. I have looked like this far longer than I've been trapped here in your bathroom."

"And I have had this face my entire life."

"The least you could do is have a different haircut than me. How do even have exactly the same ponytail as I do? It's not exactly a common haircut."

"This face just works best with long hair, as I'm sure we have both long since discovered."

"Don't do anything horrible to Ilene using my face as a cover."

"Why would I be cruel to the only person who might tell me who I am? Read those papers and then you'll understand better. See you later, brother."

Zephyr glared at Thanatos as he left for having the insolence to repeatedly call him brother. He glared at the papers, hating himself for wanting to read them, and sat down, trying not to look at the stack. Eventually, his boredom got the better of him and he opened the top one.

First, horror flooded Zephyr that anybody would be crazy enough to fake such an awful story. Then, a pervading sense of the truth enveloped him as some long hidden instinct said that this had to true. Then, horror again as he realized that Thanatos had grown up all alone, separated from any friends just because he knew where he came from. It wasn't fair that anybody should suffer in silence while his peers would know nothing other than love and admiration their whole lives; while kidnapping did seem a bit extreme, Zephyr would forgive poor Thanatos for his crimes. If he had spent his entire life privy to this information as well, he would also take dramatic measures to find out the complete story behind the nightmare of his life.

The longer Zephyr sat there, the more he wanted to speak with Thanatos again, but this time out of friendship and brotherhood rather than anger. No person should ever be left so lonely just because of their knowledge.

It was about at this point that Zephyr realized that ignorance truly is bliss.

* * *

Ilene was tired of sleeping on a bathroom floor, sick of being given cold soup for meals, and done with trying to explain to Thanatos that she didn't know who they truly were or where they had come from. She had spent her entire life up to that point not knowing the complete truth about herself, and she had been fine with that, but now, she wanted to hit herself on the head for never talking to her adoptive parents about why they wouldn't tell her the truth. She had always assumed they just wanted her to feel like she was theirs, but now she thought that they had just been protecting her from the truth that she had been born and abandoned in a field where people seemed to think babies would be a good gift for the earth. Ilene was frustrated for not asking them who she was and even more frustrated for not asking about her bizarre dreams.

All her life she had dreamed about a man, and then one day a week ago, he had shown up and said to call him T. He had led her to Zephyr, who she considered a true friend, and eventually to being kidnapped. Ilene was almost completely positive that if she hadn't known Zephyr, Thanatos wouldn't have abducted her. She wanted to scream at the miserable turn her life had taken.

"_All I wanted to do was to become an astrophysicist and know more about the stars,"_ she thought, "_and now here I stuck, trying to explain why I don't really know who I am."_

Ilene allowed herself one fanciful "_It's not fair!_" before mentally slapping herself and trying to figure out how to maneuver around Thanatos' madness to earn her freedom. She wondered if she could lie and say she had figured out where they had all originally come from. If he was truly this desperate to know who he was, he should believe that lie.

Ilene closed her eyes to try to imagine a sufficiently convincing lie and tried to ignore that she wanted to know who she was just as desperately.

**So I had started writing this chapter way back in December, but then my laptop crashed. It was out of commission for all of January, and I was busy for all of February getting caught up on everything else I missed while my laptop was out. Before my laptop crashed, I'd already written the whole first part with Ilene, and I managed to back it up before this whole process. So I had planned on having this posted the second week of January, but that just didn't happen. So here. Yep. I'm trying to get the next chapter to you in the next two weeks, circumstances permitting.**

**Anyway, I tried not use a bunch of different points of view for this, which was harder than I thought it would be. I'm going to work on that for the next several chapters, unless I have a brilliant idea involving changing points of view.**

**So, anonymous reviewers who posted asking for the next chapter, I really meant to respond to you, but I couldn't because of the curse of the anon. Ahhh, that frustrates me.**

**Disclaimer: Tolkien owns. Not me. That would be odd.**


	10. New Allies

Maia stared at the ground in frustration. Of course, she didn't have to stare at the ground; as one of the Maiar, she wasn't entirely a physical form. She just wasn't willing to risk having Melkor discover the secrets from her; she worried that the shock of such a discovery would destroy all chances of her Master returning.

Frustration was a very annoyingly human emotion. She could not accustom herself to being powerless, and she could think of very little that would improve her standing. All Maia did now was wait for the human forms of the Valar to fall asleep and search the land to discover the workings of Tulkas and the other Maiar.

Usually, she sensed little to nothing from any of them; all were masquerading as humans just as she was. But today, she noticed an unusually large grouping of the other Maiar. If her senses could be trusted, all of them would be gathered together for a meeting.

Maia hissed in annoyance. She knew the disappearance of the two most important Valar would not go unnoticed, especially not when it seemed that the Valar were finally all being gathered together, but she had hoped that the Maiar would simply go about with their usual useless deliberation. None of the other Maiar ever served any purpose without their masters leading them.

If the Maiar were finally acting against her, she needed a better plan and defense than just herself and her Master, who knew nothing of the present proceedings. Though she hated the idea and doubted that this plan would improve her standing with her Master, she knew she had to gather the other Maiar who had ever allied themselves with Melkor. Of course, she would start only with the most controllable, like Thuringwethil. Using Mairon as the first recruit for their own army would simply not make any sense.

Less than an hour later, Maia had slipped out of the house, found Thuringwethil's home in a rocky cave up a mountain, and was talking to the estranged Maia. Finding her had been all too easy; convincing her to come out and let go of her old grudges would be harder.

"Why should I come with you? The last time you talked me into coming out of hiding to serve our Master he demoted me to the messenger and herald of his servant. Why should this time be any different?" Thuringwethil asked.

Maia briefly thanked the forces controlling her that human outward signs of emotion did not afflict her as she grew annoyed with Thuringwethil's mulishness. "That was over three thousand years ago. Our Master has need of you now, and yet you choose to ignore him because long ago, you could were most useful as a herald. Let go of your foolish grudge."

"I'll not be going anywhere unless Master himself comes here and orders me too."

"You will come with me because unless you do, Master may never again be able to give an order."

Thuringwethil barked a short laugh that completely betrayed her inner madness, "And they always said I was melodramatic. Be serious, and maybe I'll still not consider going."

"You will come with me because our Master needs help. Cease this ridiculousness at once, and let us move to a place where you are more than an eccentricity to scare random schoolchildren."

"And what is this? Needs my help? A pretty turn of phrase never meant for my ears in many an eon. And I have very good ears, you know," she said, brushing wild, matted hair behind her ears to reveal their bat-like shape.

Maya, cursing her inability to flatter all those excepting her only master, was growing really incredibly annoyed with Thuringwethil. A servant should do exactly as they are told, when they are told to do so. Pride and anger at old wounds were going to ruin everything she had worked for, and she could think of no better response than to glare down Thuringwethil and make her feel the impatience pouring forth from her eyes.

"Well?" the vampire asked, "Aren't you going to explain? Tell me!"

"You will be told when, and only when, you come with me to once again serve the Master you are beholden to."

"Oh ho," Thuringwethil laughed, "Devious little you, always with your cunning plot to make sure everything best served Master. Clever you, counting on my poor ego to lead me to coming with you, just to be needed again. Well, what if I am happy here?" she shouted.

Maia, grateful she didn't gnash her teeth like most humans, growled back out at Thuringwethil, "You have one last opportunity to come with me voluntarily. After that will be the pain, and after that, I will take you to where you need to be, one piece at a time."

"I always hated you," Thuringwethil pouted, "No sense of fun or individuality. Filthy communist."

"I'm no communist, and you have spent far too much time living in a realm in which you don't belong."

"You can go die in the miserable, cold, dark pit where you belong," she said ferally, spreading large bat wings behind her, "Which way do we go?"

* * *

After getting over her initial crankiness, Thuringwethil proved to be just as useful as Maia predicted she would be. She spied on the activities of the other Valar (who disappeared completely half-way through the week), stole food to keep the almost human guests from starving (though Maia wondered if starving them would awake them to their true identities faster to tell Master who he was), and actually managed to give some helpful suggestions regarding how they would reawaken their own Master. The mats in her hair started coming out, and she looked more like the fearsome vampire she had been born. Obviously, they couldn't let her be seen by their master for fear of what this obviously inhuman creature would do to his weak human mental state, and all of their conferences took place during the night, in a place that had been shifted from the fabric of reality, to prevent unwanted guests.

Towards the end of this week, Thuringwethil approached Maia with an obvious mental battle raging across her face in full bloom. Maia steeled herself to ask what Thuringwethil wanted from her; early in the week, she had noticed that whenever Thuringwethil argued with herself, bad things inevitably followed.

"What is it?" she asked.

Thuringwethil went through several complex facial changes before responding, "We cannot just leave Master as he is."

"No. I am trying to provoke the Others in to realizing themselves to help him discover himself."

"Yes, but how fast is that working?"

"What else do you propose I do?" Maia asked, annoyed by Thuringwethil in general.

"You know more than any that I don't want to do this, but we need Sauron."

"Mairon? What do you need with him?"

"Much as we may hate to admit it, he has always been Master's favorite servant. Perhaps the sight of him, if only in his more human form, will bring back the master we are missing."

Maia hated to admit, but she had been considering the very idea Thuringwethil had proposed. She feared that Mairon's desire to have power of his own would lead him to try to control her Master, but he had always loved him and served him loyally before he went to the Void. The only course of action open to her now was to call for his help if she ever wanted to truly speak with her Master again.

"Fine," Maia said to Thuringwethil, "We will call him in. But it must be agreed that you and I both shall keep aware at all times to prevent the possibility of a betrayal. I fear Mairon may have grown accustomed to power after all his time on his own in Mordor."

"Agreed. Though, he has never become so accustomed to power that he would betray the Master. This I know," Thuringwethil said in such a way that Maia worried she would have to spend more time monitoring Thuringwethil, to make sure she didn't relapse into her old ways.

* * *

Maia and Thuringwethil agreed that it had better be Maia who fetched Mairon because of the possibility that if he saw Thuringwethil, he would think he was being offered to have absolute power again. However, Maia had no idea if Mairon had even managed to escape the void yet, and if he had, she still didn't know where to find him. She refused to ask Thuringwethil for she still considered herself to be the better of the vampire messenger, and she also doubted that she would even know.

If a long forgotten demi-godly servant to the most powerful, fallen god ever to live was looking for a formerly powerful lord and commander, where would she look?

Obviously, the first place she checked was in what the humans called Hawaii, inside an active volcano.

Of course Mairon was there. He was just too predictable. As a fire spirit, he naturally would find the fieriest place he could and submerge himself in it.

Maia looked down at Sauron, expecting the mighty lord he had once been and saw only a pitiful creature. Though tall, it was thin with childlike proportions. Its hair looked patchy and poorly cut, like random chunks had been burnt away by fire, and its eyes were red, weepy orbs with sad yellow centers. Maia remembered how Thuringwethil had looked when she first found her and remarked on how losing power after having had it hurt far more than never having power. It was just the reason why she chose to eternally serve.

"How far you have fallen," she said to him.

"Ha," Mairon sneered, "You think I have looked the part of a warlord for all of eternity? I am no unaging maia, forever untouched by the fabric of time. The curse of the creatures of fire is to change as a flame does, not to stagnate forever into eternity like you."

"Impetuous fool. You brought this upon yourself when you put too much power into one creation and let it be destroyed by a Halfling race of men."

"True as that may be, I am no weakling. You may have had longer to recover from The Fall, but I exist with more power than you could hope to gain through any means."

"You were no weakling. Now, you are a barely recovering wraith who needs more help than all the service he even has to offer."

"Only a great fool would think that even a weakling would choose not to serve his Master when the time came that help was needed."

"But only a still greater fool would seize power immediately after his Master fell and attempt to control the world while his fellow servants searched for their once powerful Master."

Mairon smiled, "Let us not play such games anymore, child. Clearly, we both need equal amounts of help. Me, to gather strength to leave this restful, comfortable place, and you, for the only thing to ever stir your passions: our Master."

"Your tongue remains as clever as your creations, but I wonder about your mind. Do you know why I need you?" Maia tested him.

Mairon smiled at her with all his yellow teeth. Revealing his abilities had never been his way, but he said, "The Master has come back. You foolishly sought him out, expecting him to be ready to reconquer the world, and he didn't know who you were. You want me to make him remember."

"Fine. I need your help. Cease your gloating and help if you want to be more than this wasted thing," she said, surprised he could guess so easily, "Do you have the strength to get up, or do you need my help?" she sneered, hoping to recover some forgotten dignity.

Mairon looked her straight in the eyes and stood. He didn't stand in the way humans stood, where they merely raised themselves to their feet. He stood in the way only a fallen vala or maia could stand. As he rose, fire engulfed his entire body, and his wasted form became once more the body of an ancient power. Thin, weak body became well built; patchy, dull hair became a true fire, raging behind his head; weeping, yellow eyes became the eyes of fire he had once been known for. Mairon once more looked like a power to be reckoned with.

Of course, after all his theatrics, he also swayed like a drunkard about to pass out. Only he would take energy he needed to even exist and waste it on something like that.

"Most intelligent maia would appear in a more diluted human form if they were going to go to the lands of the men," Maia said.

"Most maia are also, by their nature, powerless cowards, but if you wish me to drop to your level, I will do as you say," he said, fading into a more human visage with hair that was just red and curly rather than actual flames. He would never say such a thing, but he looked relieved to have to spend less energy upholding his appearance.

Maia spared a brief moment to cherish his moment of weakness, and the two of them left.

* * *

Mairon did not adapt to life with their fallen Master as Thuringwethil did. Most likely, it was because he served no real purpose other than to befriend their Master and bring him back. This meant much of his time while the Master slept was spent doing nothing. He looked as though he might explode from boredom when one day, it seemed as though his purpose had been served.

Melkor was starting to remember who he was.

**So I wrote a chaper.**

**Oh yeah. Be proud.**

**Like every other chapter I've posted, I meant to have had this posted a long time ago, but I didn't. So that's that. I'm really trying to mend my ways. I swear I am.**

**On the matter of excuses: Still having laptop issues. This time the space bar broke and the entire keyboard had to be replaced. Then I went to England for a week on a school trip and didn't take my laptop with me. Then, like most other human beings under the age of twenty-two(ish), school happened, and things like homework got in the way. Then I seemed to think it would be a good idea to watch all of season one of Game of Thrones in one day (which is really no excuse for not writing).**

**On the matter of names: Sauron is still Sauron, but Maia calls him Mairon because that's just how she knows him. Everybody else calls or will call him Sauron. Mairon is like one of those childhood nicknames that you think you have forgotten and then there's that one person who still calls you by it. Also, I started this story using Melkor instead of Morgoth, and unless I change my mind (which may or may not happen for plot), it's going to stay that way.**

**On the matter of review: The most common review I get can be summarized as "Please update before I whither and crumble to dust." The second most common review I've noticed can be summarized as "Use the other maia... Sauron...Thurinwethil...Gothmogs...Balrogs...maia. ..(stop using inapropriate ellipses)...(stop using inapropriate grammar-related vocabulary). Well, I have heard your pleas. This chapter is dedicated to all thirty of my reviews. May they one day be joined by many more.**

**On the matter of writing: I had a lot of fun writing for Sauron. I had no idea that was going to happen.**

**On the matter of copyright infringement and identity theft: This isn't mine because I'm not Tolkien. Don't steal the identities of dead British writers so you can post stories written with their characters on fanfiction sites.**

**If you actually read this entire note, I both applaud and love you.**


	11. Two Familiar Names

Arthur and Terra led the way into the cafeteria, with the rest of their motley group trailing along behind with varying expressions of curiosity, incredulity, and suspicion. Not knowing where they would find Ilene's roommate, they decided to simply walk to the large table in the back corner where they had last all sat together.

At the table, they found the strangest possible collection of visitors.

"Adam?" Terra asked, shocked at all over brownish colored friend, "I thought you were protesting in Brazil."

"I had my passport revoked," he replied in a soft, nervous voice, "They thought I was trying to smuggle drugs."

While this was going on, Trista was rushing to the side of her eleven year old nephew, calling, "Ethan, what are you doing here? Is my sister around?"

"No," the fair skinned boy replied, "We who are here have something to tell you."

Ryan rushed to the side of his sister and her boyfriend, recently turned fiancé, "Riley, Oscar, shouldn't you be at home, or your own school, or planning your wedding, or somewhere else?"

His long haired sister replied, "We've come here to do something much more important."

Meanwhile, Jenny, Corey, and Megan all asked at once, "Melody?" then stared at each with great surprise.

"Sorry I had to surprise all three of you like this, but it was what needed to be done," the beautiful Melody replied.

"Ok," Arthur interrupted all the mini-conversations going on around him, "So, there's Ilene's roommate, and here's all of your friends that you've ever known. Is this all just to be the oddest reunion ever, or do we have some kind of purpose?"

At this point, Megan spoke up, "I'm really sorry that T isn't here for this meeting himself, but circumstances arose and we needed to change the plan. If you'll all just sit down and make yourself comfortable, Lewis, myself, and everybody else here will try to explain as best as we can."

After a brief awkward moment where everybody found a chair, Lewis started speaking, "As I'm sure you're all aware, Ilene and Zephyr were kidnapped last weekend, we have great suspicions that all of you will also be kidnapped."

Megan continued, "Because you are all so much more than ordinary college students, we needed to get you away from where you could be found. Thanksgiving break is coming up next week, and we need you to come with us for safety."

"What do you mean 'You are all so much more than ordinary college students'?" Vanessa asked.

"For that, we will have to let your friends and the friends of your new acquaintances explain," Lewis said.

Trista's eleven year old nephew, Ethan, was the first to speak, "Trista," he said, "I'm not actually your nephew. I'm also not eleven years old."

Ryan's sister Riley chimed in, "None of us and none of you are what you appear to be. That is why we were all able to escape our obligations and duties that we should have right now."

Melody said, "We really can't tell you who you or we actually are because you'd never believe us."

"But what you do know," said Adam, Terra's beige friend, "Is that, though we make strange claims, you absolutely have to trust us."

Lewis finished off, "Please come with us. It will definitely save you, could possibly save us, and just might save everything else."

Arthur and Terra looked at each other, knowing that they both managed to fill what seemed to be a leaderless void and that their decision would probably speak for the whole group. Arthur dipped his chin in the slight way Terra had come to know meant that he would do whatever possible to know the truth.

In unison they said, "We will go with you."

The rest of the table quickly nodded their heads in assent.

In their eyes was the obvious gleam brought on only by the desire for adventure.

* * *

On their way off the college grounds to all the cars Ilmare, Eonwe, and the other maiar were able to round up, Imare said, "That was far too easy."

"You're overthinking it," Eonwe said, "They've all spent their entire lives with a gut feeling that something was just not quite right, and we helped to nudge them towards it."

"Besides," Olorin, still in the form of an eleven year old added, "I started them off on the biggest possible news of all. That made them much more susceptible to anything else anyone else might say."

"And three people who had never met each other before in their lives just discovered that they all knew me. I'm sure that helped," Melian said.

Aiwendil said nothing. He hardly ever did, so Ilmare felt all right when she finished the conversation, "I still never feel quite right when anything happens with so little trouble."

* * *

Dividing the valar up into all the cars had been easy. So had the four hour drive to the log cabin way out in the woods, isolated from civilization.

Rooming accommodations hadn't been.

All of the maiar had made the mistake of forgetting that those valar who had been married to each other long ago had only truly met in this memory last week, and all the valar couldn't understand why their friends couldn't figure out where to put them. Not that they knew anything about being of the valar.

"Ok, look," Megan was saying, "Trista and Ryan can have their own rooms, which we labeled, we don't know where Vanessa is going to sleep, and everybody else has to share."

"Why is it that only Trista and Ryan get their own rooms? Why would you think anybody else would actually want to share a room that badly? Who would I share a room with? Where are you people even going to sleep?" Helen asked.

"Well, we assumed you would share a room with Dustin," Oscar said, "And we-"

"Why on Earth would I share a room with a boy I've only met a week ago? What kind of girl do you think I am? I-"

"And why is it that you don't know where I'm sleeping?" Vanessa butted in, "Can't somebody else sleep on the couch, or does it have to be me?"

"Look, I'm sure we'll get this all figured out," Adam said, "For now, why don't we please try not to shout?"

"This is all you own fault for choosing to get to know somebody of the opposite gender best," Terra said, "Arthur and I ended up as a small group together, and I will be fine sharing a room with him, as I know him best."

Arthur turned a shade of red that rivaled the red of his hair and mumbled something about his opinion, which nobody heard except Ryan, who laughed at it.

"You, Ryan, have no right to laugh when you get a room all to yourself," Penny said.

"No, it's just that he said something funny," Ryan defended himself, "And I had as little choice in the matter as you."

"And so, you are angered by not having a sleeping partner?" Jojo asked.

The angry bickering quickly degenerated into louder, angrier bickering, during which it was somehow settled that everybody would keep their original rooming arrangements, provided that Riley and Oscar would hang a curtain up through the middle of every room, expect Terra and Arthur's, who just didn't seem to care if they roomed together at all. In exchange for having their own rooms, Ryan and Trista would have the last bathroom time, and Vanessa got the pick of either of the two couches or the outside hammock and also the first bathroom time. She picked the outside hammock, which Lewis promised to build a fire near every night.

When they finally had a moment to rest, Eonwe said to Ilmare, "See what you did with your doubting? You caused this problem."

Though she could see the laughter in his eyes, Ilmare said, "That I did."

Olorin collapsed next to them on the couch, "At least we foiled the spying that I had noticed over the past week."

"Thuringwethil's gone?" asked Aiwendil.

"I haven't seen her since we got into this forest."

"Good. She scares my rabbits."

All the other maiar rolled their eyes and laughed a bit at Aiwendil.

* * *

After four days of sharing a room with Arthur, Terra knew him better than she thought possible, and after the fifth day of waking up to randomly loud snore he always had at two-thirty in the morning, a name sprang up in her mind.

Aule.

That was the name. Aule.

This was her Aule.

She smiled fondly, and when they woke up, both she and Aule rembered, if not everything about their past, then at least their names and what they meant to each other.

"Yavanna."

"Aule."

Only valar could have hugged each other that hard and lived to tell of it without bruising.

**I started writing this chapter an hour and a half ago, and then I got into the writing mood and finished it. It's also just a bit shorter than the previous chapters, which did make finishing it a bit easier.**

**I also think it's funnier. Do you think it's funnier? (just curious)**

**So I'm going to use these names for the maiar for the entire story. If you want the be refreshed on who Olorin is of whatever, drag out your old copy of the Silmarilion or look them up on .com.**

**Also, remember that chart I suggested way back in the fourth (or so) chapter? Here's where it comes in handy. If there is any interest in the chart I have made for myself, I will convert the current one (I update it every chapter to keep track of characterizations) to a pdf and put a link to it in the note for the next chapter.**

**Also, Radagast. I made fun of him here. Interestingly enough, I have a friend who has beige skin, beige eyes, and beige hair. I based Radagast's coloration on him.**

**In case you're wondering what happened to my laptop this time (because something always happens), the fan broke. It only just got fixed today, which was why I started the chapter today.**

**Disclaimer: Funny how these things work, but I don't own the Silmarilion. Wow. Shocker.**

**I really need to learn how to write shorter Author's Notes.**


	12. Back in the Bathrooms

Zephyr stared at the cold tile lining the floor of the bathroom in which he was locked. Frustration was almost leaking out of his pores because of his absolute need to help poor Thanatos. Thanatos did not seem to want to be helped and instead, seemed more content to constantly try to aggravate Zephyr whenever the two were talking.

In his frustration and boredom, Zephyr had taken to asking himself rhetorical questions. Unfortunately, he also found himself answering his own questions almost as often as he was asking them.

"_There is definitely only one of me. Maybe I have a crazy twin brother, but there is only one me,_" he said to himself, "_Stop talking to yourself._"

Of course, none of this did anything to stop the questions from flowing. There was just something about being kidnapped, meeting your long lost twin, discovering your own adoption, and having your own status as a human doubted that just produced philosophical questions about existence.

"_Everyone has to be created by someone_," he thought, _"Most children are created by their parents. Who created us?_"

Zephyr had never been especially religious. As a pilot, he was able to journey straight into the realm of the gods, stare their power in the eye, and come back again. The only higher power he had ever known was gravity, and gravity was the master of all that eventually pulled everybody back to earth. Only the ground could control.

But if the ground and the sky were the only things to command his respect other than the man and the machine, where did he come from? Fine, Zephyr came from nothing, was born without a parent, but matter is neither created nor destroyed. He took chemistry in high school; he knew that. Corn and grass didn't just grow a baby either, so where did he come from?

Obviously, this line of reasoning could only lead to the supernatural. If the creation of matter was not allowed by the natural laws, then perhaps Zephyr existed outside of those natural laws. Or maybe, he wasn't matter at all. Perhaps he was some creation of neither matter nor energy. Never mind. Zephyr could feel his thoughts wandering down paths that were definitely wrong. He was made of matter, and that much was most definitely true.

Also, how was it that fourteen people mysteriously arose under the same circumstances? They must be connected in some way, but how? How was he connected to Trista, the therapist, or Arthur, the sculptor? What did he have to do with Ilene? Were they all supernatural siblings? Zephyr hoped not; he couldn't think of Ilene as his sister. But then what? Who was he?

"_One of the hardest things,_" Zephyr mused, "_is to not know who you are."_

* * *

Ilene glared at the floor like it was its fault that she had been kidnapped and had her identity taken from her. All her life, she had been mostly content to pretend she fit in okay with the people of her town, and that all of her strangeness was solely because of her need to study the stars. Thanatos had to take away her thin wall of protective ignorance so that he would no longer suffer alone. Misery always loves company, and Ilene couldn't have been more miserable.

The biggest problem lie now in that she had to destroy a lifetime's worth of lies saying that she was just the same as everybody else. She didn't have a problem with not being the same as anybody else, anyone who observed her one in the morning star charts could see that, but in the past she had reasoned that away with explanations of great stellar passion. Now, she would have to admit her slight lack of humanity to herself and figure out who she actually was.

Unfortunately, Ilene didn't want to do that. Learning who she was would also let Thanatos learn who he was, and Ilene had nothing if not a stubborn streak a mile wide. If he kidnapped her looking for his identity, he would get nothing out of her. Ilene would simply not think of the biggest problem in her life, and he would get no answers.

But the curiosity burned through her like a hot knife through butter. The unknown danced its tempting self not more than half a foot from Ilene's nose; she could reach out, take it, and learn so much. _"Don't you want to know who you are?"_ it taunted Ilene. How could she not want to know who she was?

"_Knowledge is dangerous,_" she reminded herself,_ "See what knowledge did to Thanatos over the course of his life? Do you want to burdened that way for all eternity?"_

But she did want that burden. Ilene would have led mankind to the gates of Hell in the quest for knowledge, and that's just what she was going to do. Who cares if Thanatos learns of himself? Certainly not Ilene.

"_Okay,_" she thought to herself, "_let's do this logically. What would be a connecting pattern between Zephyr, me, and all the rest?"_

Ilene thought hard, but she had already looked for connecting patterns when she had first met everybody. None seemed to exist then, and none could still be found.

"_Okay. There has to be something. Let's go over majors again,"_ she reasoned, "_Myself: astrophysics. Zephyr: pilot. Ryan: marine biology. Arthur: sculpture. Terra: ecologist. Jenny-"_

Was that a pattern? That was definitely a pattern Ilene was seeing. Instead of being found in similarities, that pattern was found in the absolute differences and passion over their chosen careers. Ryan loved the water; it was plain from his major and position on all the aquatic teams, Zephyr would do anything to fly up and never have to come down again, and Ilene almost lived with her stars. She could name and recite the history (both real and mythical) of most constellations faster and easier than she could remember the names of her dorm-mates.

Absolute, devouring passion connected them all, but what did that have to do with inexplicable babies? Ilene was certain that if anybody could find out, it would be her.

* * *

"_How is it that some people are able to grow so bitter and angry?_" Zephyr thought as Thanatos again shoved a cold, unopened can of soup through his door, "_How is it that one child grew up happy and loved, and another learned to hate the world and everything in it?"_

Zephyr wondered if the absolute, polar differences between him and his, seemingly, twin brother had something to do with their identities. Every line of reasoning he pursued seemed to suggest that. They had been born (or whatever word was more appropriate) together, accidentally had the same haircut at the age of twenty, spoke with the same bit of obvious ego, and, from what Zephyr could tell, had basically the same tastes in everything.

And speaking of tastes, the soup that had been poked through the door was Zephyr's absolute least favorite, cream of mushroom with garlic. Positive that Thanatos knew exactly what he was doing when he poked that can through the door. Zephyr mentally cursed him in every language he knew. He stopped only because that bitterness was where Thanatos fell apart from him. He would be fine with whatever Thanatos did because that was what separated them, what made them distinct individuals.

Could it also be a small explanation of who they both were? An old teacher of Zephyr's had once said that your relationships with others defined you. That would be a good start to defining himself. Zephyr started to list off some of his characteristics that were plain from his relationship with all those who had originated in that field.

From the way he interacted with Thanatos, it was obvious that he was forgiving. He had not had enough interactions with any of the others to characterize himself based on them, and he didn't know where to start with Ilene.

How _did_ he act around Ilene? Zephyr couldn't say; around her, everything he did just felt right. The only fact that stayed fixed in is mind was how perfect Ilene always seemed to him.

Zephyr loved Ilene.

That was all he knew, but it was enough.

He loved Ilene, and no matter what, he would forgive Thanatos. Varda would say a fool had invaded his mind to put all that forgiveness there.

Varda?

Who is Varda? Why is it that her name had replaced Ilene's?

Because they were the same person. Ilene was Varda, and he, Zephyr, was Manwe. They would always find each other again in the end. He didn't anything else about the rest of his identity, but this was enough.

Just the thought of his lovely Varda a few rooms over was enough to improve his eyesight beyond that of even a hawk.

* * *

"_So, if we are all completely ruled by our undying passions for one specific thing, which does not coincide with the thing someone else is passionate about, and we are almost certainly supernatural, were we created by the thing?_" Ilene asked herself.

Since discovering that their connection lay in having passions, Ilene had been trying out as many different possibilities for their connection to the passion as she could, but she still felt wrong. They hadn't been created as the physical embodiment as their respective passions, but what if they had created the passions themselves?

Why did Ilene suddenly feel like she was making sense? And why was it that something still felt missing?

Right. Zephyr. He had become, over the last week, as important to her as the stars in the sky. In fact, if she had decorated the sky with stars just to show him her feelings, she knew exactly what she would have done.

And she had already done that. And he had arranged the sky so that they might always be together.

Ilene had failed the point of what she tried to do; she had no idea who Thanatos or the others were and wasn't even entirely sure who she herself was. But, she knew that she had placed the stars in the sky to please one person, and she could almost hear his voice again.

Could she hear his voice? Her hearing had much improved and quickly over the past day, and there was hardly a sound in the house that escaped her notice. So that whisper from over half across the house in the other bathroom could belong to only one person.

"Varda?" he said.

That was her name. "Manwe," she half sobbed her whisper out. His name.

"I have a funny feeling you can hear me now, though I know you shouldn't be able to," he continued, "I definitely can't hear you, but if you can hear me, I have a plan. Please, cough if you can hear, just so I know you're there."

She coughed as loudly as she possibly could and listened as he laid out his plan for escape.

* * *

Thanatos could feel his level of annoyance rising until he was almost completely certain his ears were going to pop off. The amount of happiness in Maia's house had steadily risen over the past three days for everybody except him. Ilene and Zephyr seemed to have some almost simultaneous revelation that made them almost impervious to all of Thanatos's angry questions, Maia's ginger friend seemed happy just to be around Thanatos (which Thanatos found creepy beyond belief), and Maia seemed relieved just to have her friend over to lift some responsibilities off her shoulders. They all had a little bit of happiness to carry around, and Thanatos had none. None at all.

Having friends would be a great way to feel happy, but Thanatos had none. He had only strange servants who seemed to feel the desire to pander to his every need.

Of course, his lack of happiness was not fixed by the lack of bathrooms. Ilene and Zephyr were occupying the only two as their prison cells, and Thanatos had not had a shower in almost a week. They hadn't either, but at least they didn't have to go through the bother of getting a prisoner adequately restrained to use the toilet.

Everything that happened had started to annoy Thanatos. Especially the sound of Maia and her friend's voices.

"Do you require anything of me, sire?" Maia's friend asked.

"Shut up, Sauron," Thanatos said, frustrated with hearing this question at least ten times every hour.

That was something he had said before, so why was the ginger staring at him that way?

Right. He had been introduced as Sam. Thanatos had met him before as Sauron.

Back when Thanatos was called Melkor.

**I think this chapter happens to coincide with the one year anniversary of this story. Whoa. Hopefully, by this time next year, I will have finally finished the story.**

**I actually planned the next chapter as the bonus anniversary special, so be on the lookout for that. I'm planning on having it posted pretty soon.**

**And speaking of posting, I've been doing a much better job of being routine lately. I'm pretty proud of myself.**

**Also, I finally put that chart I've been mentioning on the internet. It will be out of date by the next chapter, but at least it will exist. Unfortunately, I can't get the link to stay here. Visit my profile page, I think I have a better idea for linking.**

**(Ignore the awkward spoilers at the bottom of the chart)**

**All belongs to Tolkien. I know, crazy, right?**


End file.
